Jumping Fences to Wichita: my 100 favourite songs

“It started with a playlist…I never thought it would come to this…” (with apologies to Hot Chocolate).

Well yes, I went quite a bit further with an early lockdown challenge amongst some friends to each compile a Spotify playlist of our 50 favourite songs (with only one selection by any single artist).  From an initial longlist of 379 such tunes – leading to various accompanying playlists in addition to my standard top 50 – I then started blogging about each choice.  Initially this involved pretty much one post every day throughout April and May for my favourite 50, before broadening this out to cover my top 100 songs and then blogging roughly twice a week from June to November.  And so a project that began near the start of the first lockdown comes to a conclusion towards the end of the second lockdown…

379: The Playlists

Starting with a friends challenge in early April to produce a Spotify playlist of my top 50 songs (with just one track per artist), I initially came up with a longlist of 379 tunes, all of which were then compiled into various Spotify playlists – so this page pulls all these playlists together into one place…

B100: #100 “Jumping Fences” by The Olivia Tremor Control

Rounding out the list of my 100 favourite songs, it’s the psych pop confection of “Jumping Fences” by The Olivia Tremor Control from 1996, also the shortest of all 100 tunes at just under two minutes.

B100: #99 “My Sharona” by The Knack

Rounding out the nineties in my B100 favourite songs rundown, it’s “My Sharona” from 1979 by The Knack.

B100: #98 “I Wanna Be Sedated” by Ramones

“Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go…” – “I Wanna Be Sedated” sees the Ramones crash into my B100 top tunes list.

B100: #97 “I’ll Be There For You/You’re All I Need To Get By” by Method Man (featuring Mary J.Blige)

Some more Wu-Tang action in my B100 favourite tunes list now, as Method Man teams up with Mary J. Blige for this 1995 collaboration.

B100: #96 “Chesterfield King” by Jawbreaker

Some early 90s punk rock now in my B100 favourite songs rundown, with the US cigarette referencing “Chesterfield King” by Jawbreaker.

B100: #95 “The Snake” by Al Wilson

Another Northern Soul classic in my B100 top tunes rundown, this time “The Snake” by Al Wilson.

B100: #94 “C.R.E.A.M.” by Wu-Tang Clan

“Enter The Wu-Tang” in my B100 favourite songs list now, courtesy of “C.R.E.A.M.” from the fantastic first Wu-Tang Clan album.

B100: #93 “O.U.” by Pulp

Pre-Britpop fun with Pulp in my B100 favourite songs rundown now, courtesy of 1992 single “O.U.”.